


Leverage

by IrreWilderer



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Smut
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-10-12
Updated: 2016-01-25
Packaged: 2018-04-25 23:42:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 13,033
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4981336
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IrreWilderer/pseuds/IrreWilderer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As plans progress and his army grows, a trespasser is caught in the midst of Fen'harel's main compound. The rebel god decides to question them himself, only to find the agent holds all the power.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

It was a secret kept so close to the chest that, if whispered, the words would cut to the heart-blood of the rebellion and all could be lost. There was no name for this place protected by eluvians and disinformation; only a description measured in tempera pigments. It illustrated a cryptic, colourful story understood by no one. It wasn't discussed or questioned, however, for Fen'harel would have his privacy.

It was a privacy which was now insulted.

The elf girl's self-imposed bonds were injuries keeping her from becoming a nuisance. Upon detection, guards had pursued her to a small garden where she curled up near a bed of embrium given to weeds. Trembling yet resigned, she concentrated on the seconds when the pains she felt were not so bad. Her singed cloak was in tatters enough to afford a view of flesh slicked with blood like it was sweat.

The sounds of his pace preceded him. Fen'harel was soon in the desolate garden of his home with his people, the spy, and the blossoms of night-blooming cereus.

"She came from where?"

"The library, my lord, is where we found her."

Fen'harel considered the girl watching him with the wary, wet eyes of a fawn. An unnatural beauty by any standard of tastes, laying on the dirty ground like a wounded beast wanting of mercy. For all her charm she implied an ugly problem.

"You've come far, and gained where dozens have failed. Who is owed the compliment? The qunari or the Inquisition?"

She hiccuped and it hitched into a self-sorry moan while she stared up.

"The Inquisition," Fen'harel guessed thoughtfully at the child. "Your lack of stoicism smacks of the spymaster's limited choice in agents. Yet you are deserving of credit. Were it any other stronghold you had stumbled upon, you may have been given leave. An offer of recruitment, perhaps. Sadly, this place is the exception. "

Fen'harel began to pace before her, giving the impression of the prowling wolf to his guards who were watching with wonder as their leader worked. The elfmaid sighed in measured breaths as her lungs cringed and wounds gaped like slurring mouths. 

"To cause suffering is regrettable. However, given the circumstances, it would be necessary." Fen'harel's gaze hardened somewhat, as ice stills a small, clear pond. "If there remains a lost eluvian I will know of it."

He crouched down before her. Two fingertips threatened the stomach wound which was defended by a limp hand. Her other fist was lost in the flowing cloak which gave no indication of the body beneath. Indeed, the item didn't appear to belong to her at all. The collar was stretched, the arms ill-fitting; much like a child in her parent's formal silks playing at pretend.

"It is not mortal," Fen'harel said while pressing at the slice in her skin. The girl gasped and strangled a scream behind clenched teeth. "But it could yet be. Consider the cost of your loyalty. You may regret what you might have given freely."

The rebel god stood and nodded at the two guards behind him. Under the steeled scrutiny of their lord, they collected the girl and made to move her somewhere more conducive to confession. There were many dark rooms where her injuries and the prospects of new ones might secure the information Fen'harel sought.

But the trespasser had found her voice.

"I will not give freely what you can take, Dread Wolf."

And how Fen'harel's brow darkened, a forest dimmed in fear. His composed arms fell like dead tree limbs, and the protective bark of mastery became a broken mask at his feet. A mighty oak ruined, there he stood.

"You're alive," he said, his tone deepened to black depths of disbelief as he stared. This face he did not know, but the voice he heard in his mind at all times: in argument with his conscience, in congruence with his compassion, and crying when he wished he could afford tears. He could have questioned it, but there was no doubting the knowing triumph and obvious love in the stranger's eyes.

"My lord?" asked one of the guards.

"Bring the Inquisitor to my quarters," Solas ordered.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As plans progress and his army grows, a trespasser is caught in the midst of Fen'harel's main compound. The rebel god decides to question them himself, only to find the agent holds all the power.

The corridor's flooring suggested colours outlining the cobblestone like it were an artist's sketch. Burnt orange, aged gold; a turn of her head had her realizing the ruin of frescos which had once ornamented the halls, and were now trampled into dust and stuck between the stones with the dirt.  
  
"Olyla. If you would: hot water, rags and healing potions to my room, please."  
  
It was the walk to his quarters she would remember. Agony imprisoned memories like leaves trapped in the pages of a book. Years from now, spying distant hills through a paneless window would recall the bite of glass embedded in her heel, while lush vines winding round a decorative column captured the pain of her stomach in a memorable portrait.  
  
"Contact the auxiliaries and bring them to station here. This place is of key importance, and I would not lose it unless necessary."  
  
"How many more are we expecting, then, my lord?"  
  
They entered a great room barely noticed by the moonlight. The walls seemed to run on forever in a mist of grey, but that could have been the fault of her failing eyes. Like a ghost the room was utterly void of scent, and like the grave it was worryingly inviting.  
  
"Inquisitor?"  
  
The head of their company was waiting.  
  
"None," the female breathed. It had been months since being addressed as such without the colouring of mockery behind it. "No one followed me, and I was alone. The eluvian that took me to the Crossroads was destroyed. It's impossible that it was not."  
  
"What makes you certain?"  
  
Memories of brimstone fouled her mouth. "Gaatlok. The building collapsed in on its self, and still it... everything was burning. Believe me that it was destroyed."  
  
One of the sentinels shifted about restlessly on his heels in the space of his lord's deliberations. The other was as a statue, still and expressionless.  
  
"See to it," ordered Fen'harel. He assured the double doors shut behind the quickly retreating guards.  
  
Thus the rebel god brought the head of his forces and the face of the Inquisition together in solitude. Yet he did not turn immediately. Hands still resting on silver latches molded to impressions of dragons, the male's head bowed slightly for fatigue, or grief, maybe fear. His thumb could be seen smoothing over the curve of the metal beast's neck in surrogate affection.  
  
"Solas." Ma'ven dragged the name across her tongue. "I..."  
  
He turned and straightened his shoulders. "Should not be here," Solas finished.  
  
"I didn't choose it," Ma'ven promised while taking slow, unsteady steps towards him. "I went through and came upon the Crossroads. And then I was here. I swear. This is just... my luck."  
  
"Your luck _is_ limitless," Solas conceded lovingly despite himself. He began to abandon the responsibility of being stoic as her toes neared in an audible tapping on the floor. Yet he retreated for every step she took. Solas dreaded what might come. Were it a knife, tears or a smile, he would be undone.  
  
Ma'ven stumbled suddenly.  
  
Striding forward, relishing his weakness, Solas caught the elfmaid and brought her palm to his cheek. There was too much longing for a kiss to express the half of it, and he couldn't fathom the feel of his lips insisting upon hers when the mouth was so wrong. These curves had never been caressed in a moment of perfect vulnerability, or slowed time by virtue of a smile.  
  
"My men looked. My spies searched. I allocated resources which can not be counted. And yet to be outdone by a simple trip to Kirkwall..." Solas lost a proud little smirk to her finger tips. "Xenon remains his old self, I hope."  
  
"I often forget that it was even done. When you rarely see yourself in a mirror, it hardly matters."  
  
"And you were away from the Inquisition," Solas guessed correctly. "Where the truth of your identity would have gone unrealized."  
  
Ma'ven laughed bitterly while brushing his cheek. "I'm bleeding on the ground, Solas. Might we fix that before the interrogation begins?"  
  
And blood there was: red ink describing suffering in cursive on the floor.  
  
Solas stepped back and took stock. It wasn't just the over-sized cloak, or the face of a stranger; she wore guilt at her eyes in an exotic, cryptic cosmetic. His brow furrowed. "What did you do, Ma'ven? Where did you go?"  
  
She shook her head. "I plead amnesty, my lord Fen'harel. Quarter, while I recover."  
  
"Do not play, vhenan," Solas frowned.  
  
"Can you even say that to this face?" Ma'ven asked.  
  
Shamed, the older elf turned to scrutiny. Silver lines drew over the girl's face like webs left in the wake of silk-spinning spiders. It was only a mask of magic, a spell, and he could sense the strings of it, and knew where to tug and where to tear. Within seconds it was done, and the room returned to darkness from the sudden burst of white light.  
  
"Emma lath." The recovery of her golden eyes: it was beauty needless of debate. And her hair, darkened to shadows made by mountains, framed a face guarded by strength but sculpted to softness. Her good works and great determination crowned her in admiration, both his and the world's, and it was this face that had faced Corypheus with a little fear and so much focus. Solas pulled her by the small of the back for a kiss, but she howled. Naturally the first sounds he pulled from her were cries of pain.  
  
A knock on the door heralded Olyla with the therapeutics before he could apologize.  
  
"Go receive her and I'll disrobe," Ma'ven said while stepping passed him, tensed from the innocent accident. The imprint of his fingers pulsed on her skin. It was the harrowed look on his face that had hurt her, however.  
  
Near a dead fireplace sat the bed. It spoke to her guilty interests in Orlesian finery and sang of elven slumber. The bedposts twisted up like climbing trees of polished bronze, and crossed back and forth above the mattress, cradling yards of silk that swayed down to frame the bed in seduction. The silk was old and frayed, true, but that only lent to the impression of soft clouds caressing the ornamental leaves.  
  
The bed was unmade. The blue covering was thrown back, exposing ruffled sheeting. She could practically feel the heat caught in those blankets from the body which had been resting there, peaceful in repose, perhaps reading the leather-bound book on the bedside table. In an audible smack, Ma'ven's hand clasped over her mouth.

The haunting image of Solas's empty bed had shackled her to heartbreak, and made her realize both the years since she had seen him and the reality of the situation: that Solas was here, that she was with him, and he would force her to leave, most likely by morning. The small mercy of this was that she would have the night to lay in his arms, at least.  
  
An elf woman had placed a silver tray on the bed, and was now pulling the tattered clothing from Ma'ven's body without ceremony.  
  
"Where is he?" Ma'ven demanded while gripping her cloak protectively, startled at being taken unawares.  
  
"He will return," Olyla explained while sympathetically moving Ma'ven's hand away. She was pretty and near Ma'ven's age. Her black hair was a braided raven's shroud, and she had a mouth which naturally frowned in thoughtful seriousness. "Fen'harel has asked that I help and keep you here. Heed him for my sake, my lady."  
  
And, of course, the wrath of an elven god was likely terrible indeed. Ma'ven let her cloak slip away and the air robed her in bitter midnight.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Solas kisses Lavellan's ills better. This chapter was supposed to be for Solas Fluff Friday, but these dummies insist on being written defluffed.

Whispers like morning larks lingered at the door; a lilting display of gracious, practiced courtesy for her benefit against the backdrop of early morning.

"She should yet eat, my lord. I'll bring something with the poultice. Broth."

"Thank you."

Cedar spit and cracked, desperate to thrill its threnody before burning to black coal. The last of the logs in the fireplace choired away as Ma'ven's sight came into focus, but she shut her eyes again against the light and waking world. The pain went to her elbows and fingernails.

"Olyla voiced some concern," he said.

The sounds of clasps, belts, mail and metal drove away the space between them. Cotton sliding off skin and against its self as it pooled on the floor, the scrape of laces loosened; like dulcimers and drums shading the dance of undressing as Solas did just that.

"And what did she say?"

"That the healing potions produced a volatile reaction. You've been ill."

She anchored herself to Solas's presence. He was behind her, hovering, body heat brushing her under the sheets. Having rested, Ma'ven no longer had the luxury of disorientation to distract her from what she'd left on the slick prison floor: blood, and dignity, but at least the place had burned to the ground.

"Where might I touch you that it won't cause pain?"

Ma'ven smiled without joy against the dark. "My hair?"

A sad sigh followed Solas's fingertips into her locks. For some minuets they lay like that, Solas tentatively stroking her crown, though the silence and secrets between them lengthened it to hours. If such a moment could be made into months by omission and mystery, then Ma'ven would gladly keep her secrets. The silence, however, could hardly sustain against Solas's concern.

"I would see the extent of your injuries, if you will allow it," he said quietly.

'You've never asked so nicely to see me naked before,' was what Ma'ven wanted to say. Instead, "I'm at your mercy, lord," crawled from her throat, and she rolled onto her back, consenting.

She bit into a terrible grimace, and Solas pursued it with grieving of his own when pulling back the bed sheets. As her more superficial wounds needed to breathe and dry, her body was bare save for a white bandage fixed at the stomach. Cleaned cuts on her arms were lightly bleeding fresh, the skin red and puffy where it was broken. A healing carve like a canyon ran vertically through the fleshy curve of her left breast, splitting the nipple. It was the broken resignation and small bit of shame on Ma'ven's face which caused his worry, however.

That she was in his bed after all this time while battered and humiliated reminded him of the simplistic purity of anger. That he didn't know why she was in such a state was worse. Ma'ven had always been his open book of truth and honesty. This stubborn silence was a betrayal to her character, a switch from poetry to prose mid-sentence.

The male elf laid on his thigh along her side.

"The myths surrounding the origins of magic are as complicated as they are fascinating," Solas mused without preamble. From the new light in Ma'ven's eyes, his goal seemed half-met. "The Dalish cling to their superstitions, as did we — before they were perverted for personal gain. According to legend, the oldest magic was a mockery of its self. The intention to harm was mirrored by the motive to heal. To prepare one's self for the former, there were rigors and rituals that would have lasted months, and most would have said there was little gained by it." Solas's thumb smoothed across her cheek. "The rites to heal were much simpler."

"But magic was just part of being elven, I thought," Ma'ven said. "Why would they need to work harder to hurt someone?"

"Therein lies the lesson," answered Solas. "Causing pain is in opposition to our purpose, which should be to help and heal. Hence the tribulations of such a base objective as harm."

Ma'ven smirked. "You make us sound like spirits."

"Neither you nor I are like those who came before," Solas said. "And no one from this age, and no one from mine."

"Do you know what it is they would do? To..." The elfmaid breathed heavy in hopes of stopping the sudden, creeping onslaught of self-pitying sobs that were making promises to her tightening throat. It was impossible to forget the pain, no matter Solas's attempts. "To... heal others?"

"I do." Solas pressed his forehead desperately to her temple, grimacing against her suffering. "My love. Let me show you."

He meditated on where to begin with his ministrations. The most visibly obvious spot was her breast, but his intentions would likely be misleading if he followed through. Pulling from her side, he walked around and lowered himself beside her legs. Ma'ven's knees were scraped, blue and black and bruised, and every bit as beautiful as he remembered.

Ma'ven could see his form clad only in black leggings settling at eye-level with her body. She didn't like him over there; she wanted him back at her side. "What are you going to do? Stare my scars into submission? I don't-"

Silence, like snow drifting and settling. The softest communication of his desires; a sweet taste of feeling. Rain licking flowers and sunlight bathing fields, or just the simple knowledge that this wasn't a dream. Such was his spell.

"Are you... kissing me better?"

"Old magic," she heard Solas say, "was terribly romantic."

Ma'ven cried, and she cried happy tears

The sound of wet lips parting echoed as he worked on one knee up to the peak, over the scrapes, and along the painted pain of purpled bruises. His hand clasped on her other knee, holding it reassuringly and careful. Ma'ven watched him in breathless anticipation, but his intentions were pure. He gave the same treatment to the other, and then rocked back.

"You were limping." Standing, Solas clasped his hands behind his back and took on that serious, studious facade which was entirely out of place at the moment, and he knew it. "There's been damage done to your heel, correct?"

She felt nothing through the bandage; not him physically, in any case. The mere proximity of a body to the sensitive soreness coursed mean metallic spasms through her foot. Still, the sight of it had her giggling like a girl. Barely anything but Solas's ears were visible above the mattress as he spoiled her heel with kisses.

From there he came back around to her side, laid out horizontally on the bed, and dipped down to her belly.

"Ah!"

Solas's head snapped back. "Is it so bad?"

Ma'ven bit her lip. "Yes."

So he found the silver lines of scars between her fingers, every finger, and placed a chaste kiss upon them. A patch of flesh on her armpit rippled by a burn was tickled in his affections. Matching pairs of forked marks under her chin and on her chest were lavished with a little more than a sweet peck: the air cooled and swirled where his tongue had left wet licks of his curative efforts.

Exhaustion, greed and foreboding illuminated his actions where the morning light lacked. Ma'ven had seen glimpses of his high-spirits in past, moments of passion that he eventually supressed, but this was Solas as Solas was: creative and devoted. It didn't bode well for her, and it certainly promised something ominous for the rest of the world. Where Solas was committed, he was irrepressible.

"I hope I've impressed upon you an appreciation of the older magics," Solas said as he lay alongside her again. "Despite their crude designs."

"I think 'older magic' missed a spot," Ma'ven answered.

It was the permission he had sought through a process of elimination. Every touch of her, every glimpse of her bare body, spiked desire in him, but it was desire he could keep in check out of respect for her pain. But here she was saying yes, expecting, yes, his lips upon her breast. So he slid down on the bed a little.

"No, Solas. Not there."

He moved away from her chest, brow raised.

"Close." Her forefinger rested up and away from the ugly cut and its mysterious origins. Her finger rested over her heart. "Or can you mend that?"

"Vhenan," Solas pleaded deeply. It was a blow he deserved but had not expected; a heavy guilt that ground him down from the heights of happiness he was allowing himself. "I-"

"No." Ma'ven's voice deepened. "Ir abelas. Ir abelas, emma lath, I should not have said it." Her hand found his brow and brushed over it, a crown of comfort while stroking his skin. "I thought last night a dream. I've missed you. Ar lath-" She gasped for air, heart beating heavy and quick like a dying bird's wing. "I love you. Don't make me go."

Solas rested his forehead on her bare breast and his body lost its strength. Half laying on top of her, his arms then curled up alongside hers, ever mindful not to irritate her wounds. Sweat and sweetness, the salt of blood, he smelled her and his stomach tightened.

"I must. And I will." Solas dragged himself away, dragged his heart through thorns, and stood. He looked down upon her. "Why were you in Qunandar?"

Ma'ven swallowed sharply. "What?"

"You stated that the eluvian which brought you here was destroyed by gaatlok. And your wounds are..." Solas looked away. "You are covered in evidence of torture, Ma'ven. It was not a difficult conclusion to draw."

"The Dread Wolf and his tricks," she said with a sarcastic chuckle.

"My intentions were innocent," Solas insisted sadly. "The knowledge was a side-benefit."

The female tried to reach for the bed covers with her only hand, but they were far and her stomach strained at the sutures. "I'm sure you say that to every prisoner you interrogate. And you can keep guessing."

Solas returned and tucked her in, mindful of the fragility which only went as far as her physicality. "Olyla will be in with broth. Take it slowly." He placed his last spell of old magic upon her forehead. "Ar lath ma, vhenan." And grabbing a loose-fitting tunic, he left.

It would have been in opposition to all the things she admired to begrudge him his actions. Solas's wit and thoughtful manipulation of situations had once benefitted her crusade against Corypheus, though on bitter days she saw it in less friendly light.

She was bitter now. She balled the bedsheets in her fist, disappointed in herself and in him. And yet, the Inquisitor had to admit it with something of pride in her heart: Fen'harel had played his hand well.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Solas asks for help with some homework and it turns sexy. Then angsty. Then sneaky?

The room was a formless, elegant confusion, where dark corners hid strange objects which spoke of ages older than Tevinter. Tapestries in coloured cords presented characters of terrible deeds, while gilded apparati drew the eye in their polished complication. A mirror found front and centre which suggested passed fashions would have seemed the least interesting item, lest the observer knew knowledge of eluvians. This treasure trove was similar to the curiosity shops in Orlais, or the dimly lit Black Emporium, and Ma'ven, wrung tighter than a greedy child, stood in the midst of it, gawking. As her eyes began to wonder, her feet wandered after them.

There were bookshelves. There were boxes of wood embellished with bone that, when dragged from the shelves, produced parchment with names of cities, people, procedure and plot.

There were maps. There were blueprints of buildings drawn with care, and lines winding around squares until it suggested roads wrapping around architecture.

There was Solas, standing at the door.

"Sit, please," the older elf insisted as he moved towards a desk of black lacquer. "Your heel will not be helped by standing on it."

"It's hardly more than an annoyance now," the elfmaid dismissed distractedly while eyeing her new company. "A memory of pain, really. Olyla is very good."

Despite the strength returned to her legs, it seemed they would collapse for the sight of Solas in his tunic of black silk. The simple cut defined his body in a silhouette of dignified glory, the collar raised and elongating his neck, while adornments of gold and precious stones were placed at the clasps down his chest. It was so exotic, the jewels on his breast; red rubies burning to amber in the candlelight. Such finery on him was foreign to her eyes, and entirely perfect.

Solas appraised Ma'ven's brazen gaze with a smirk as he sat. "Indeed. A praiseworthy talent wasted on those who employed her before. Bloated and distracted, the institution had become a city its self, presenting of all predictable corruption. They barely noticed her slip away."

"Is that what you truly thought of the Inquisition?" Ma'ven's brow slanted. "You must be pleased that it was disbanded."

"It is not the action I would have chosen," Solas answered. Then, "Come help me, vhenan," as he let himself become drawn to the details of her cream-coloured shift. The folds of material over her left arm flowed long and free to her knees, tastefully forgetting what he had cost her in the measures of cambric and delicate embroidery.

"Help? Help with what?"

"Minor specifics," Solas explained. He pulled fresh parchment from his desk, then squared a little pot of ink to his right. "I'd like to write of the past two days for posterity, and would welcome your eye for detail."

"Really? You still do that?" Having come upon a memory as clear and pure as any feeling found in the Fade, Ma'ven smiled wide. "I remember the journals you used to keep! Watching you scribble away in the rotunda, or in your room. At my desk. You'd ask me the colours of people's clothing, or what we ate. Nothing but ink smears on your cuff could distract you." She sighed. "And I remember hoping against hope you'd have left them for me when you'd gone."

"I am sorry," apologized Solas. "I had to burn them."

Despite the implications made by omission, however, the journals had contained nothing sensitive or secret. Solas had spun them to ash hours after the defeat of Corypheus merely for the fond memories within. They could never have helped the fight of Fen'harel, and were therefore, sadly, excessive; destined for smoke and soot.

First, however, Solas had reread the passages as though savoring a last meal. The words belonged to pages gilded by gold leaf, in red-leathered folios purchased as a six-book set in Orlais. It'd been a situation of extravagance, inspired by an afternoon spent shopping with the Inquisitor. She herself had procured a handsome quill of phoenix feather coloured by the spring plumage of rutting season (which he appreciated). A cherished gift, it had remained the pride of Solas's cluttered desk, even after Dorian remarked his approval of the 'apostate hobo's' new found taste.

But the words caught in the journals' pages had been the true riches. There'd been an account of Ma'ven spending hours staring at maps and mathematics, attempting to suss out the last star's location for an astrarium. A short entry entailed the Inquisitor singing Dalish lullabies in misarticulated pronunciations to a very, very drunk Sera, who had, surprisingly, consented. The third journal, which began with original poetry, ended with an itinerary of their time in the Winter Palace. This had consisted of too much wine with the elven kitchen staff, stumbling, catching each other, corridors, bedsheets and abandon. All of it had gone to the fire.

Ma'ven's voice cut through the cremated images of long ago.

"Well, either way, I'm not sure what help I wish to give to the Dread Wolf," she said.

Slipping his hands around her cambric covered hips, Solas guided the girl to settling sideways in his lap. The weight of her body was far easier to bare than its absence, and the short shift hiked up above her lightly bruised-to-brown knees to afford him a most intimate image. These were her bedclothes, after all, and a sight only for him.

Perfume of blossoms' oil braided locks of dark brown with an invisible crown of sweet alyssum, and Solas breathed the bouquet deeply. Along with the beeswax candle, it all brought him into his body like smelling salts, and he certainly had no need of old memories now.

"Regardless of preference, you are in his house." Solas hummed across her throat, appraising the pulse and heady heartbeat while inhaling more of her fragrance. "It might do for some courtesy."

With a whimper, Ma'ven stumbled to his spell. Shivering against his palm, shutting her eyes, all minor sensations sharpened to a symphony. Solas hardly kissed her flesh; more like he pressed his lips to her skin in an effort to make them as one. Feeling the outline of his every finger, there were ten spots of glorious pressure divided between the small of Ma'ven's back and her hip. They were little stars of bliss nigh visible against the vaulted ceiling of her eyelids. The fingertips dug in here, but there were other places they might go, and that was where she wished them. Hesitant, hurrying, hungry, from her hip to her thigh and higher up, hemming at the edge of her shift until-

The voice of reason came in a rumble rather than a whisper, and suddenly Ma'ven remembered desires other than intimacy. She glanced at the blank sheet of bleached parchment on the desk as it waited.

"Guests show courtesy," she forced herself to muse, as Solas tried to catch her tone between his teeth, "because they are concerned with prostrating before the manor-lord. When have you ever known me to kneel?" Grinning wickedly at his reaction, Ma'ven tapped the male's lips with her forefinger. "You are becoming distracted now, Solas. Remember your duties. See to your task."

To have the elfmaid narrate his thoughts was a thrill more thorough than foreplay, for indeed he had his work and her concern was touching. Solas dipped the frilless quill and went about writing around her while Ma'ven pleasantly nuzzled his cheek.

_'8446, Eluviesta, 7. Inquisitor Lavellan found in library by Vinrel & Mesnan. Neither claim her injuries. Eluvian shard embedded in heel, evidence of torture. Explosion at facility 103 in Qunandar._

_'8446, Eluviesta, 8. Relations between Tevinter and qunari further deteriorate. Raids on Imperium costal cities.'_

"Oh." Ma'ven let slip a sound of surprise as she read along. "Was the facility destroyed, then?"

The return to his responsibilities curtailed his passion and promoted consciousness of the elfmaid's piqued curiosity. What Solas had expected was evasion of the topic rather than an invitation to analyze the situation. Given that she'd previously stipulated the building was rubble, it was likely she wished to see how much he knew. But her questioning nature had always been his boon, and Solas would have Ma'ven found satisfied.

"Not entirely." The male placed the quill in the clay holder. "I have an agent tasked to handling survivors and determining damage. I will know soon if the eluvian might be recovered." His attention turned to her. "Is there anything you wish to add?"

"Naught," Ma'ven answered evenly. "You'll have to wait for your men to report. As you know, I do not bargain unless the terms of business are clear."

The seamless blend of her diplomatic abilities and indomitable perseverance was a facet of her sovereignty he admired. With pride, Solas had seen her consider tactics and political implications, and make decisions in the time it took to blink. Rarely had her efforts been foiled, and though they did not always serve his stratagem, not once had Solas been disappointed. The girl never contradicted her heart, never bowed to the pressures of the corrupt, and never looked to the easier path.

And never had Solas imagined that this costume of calculation fitted firmly under iron armor would be worn for him.

"This is no question of compromise, Inquisitor. You are without leverage." Solas, of course, knew well how to strip the clothing from her. "Were circumstances dire, I would know of it. You would not keep it from me."

"Then you admit it: there is no cause for concern, or care." Ma'ven smiled without a hint of joy. "Is that not right?"

This apathy was poison in his belly, delivered by barbs and thrice-pronged arrows. Solas's voice thickened like his tongue had become drunk from despair. "In fact I care deeply that you have spent time in a qunari prison. How could you ask me this?"

The elfmaid chuckled bitterly.

"How indeed. What do you really think? That they altered my mind? Converted me to the Qun? I've endured far worse than petty torture, and you know it. Am I now viddathari, my lord Fen'harel?"

"Cease the pretense, Ma'ven," Solas begged, bedding his head in the bend of her neck. "No more are you subservient than I a god. You can not be my prisoner, even if you wish it. And I can not allow you to remain, even if I want it."

"Why, Solas? Say why. Explain it to me. You do not have to be alone; you know I cannot stand the thought! You needn't suffer to put the world right."

If only their respite from duty could be something else. Something finer, something forgetting and forgiving; the domestic fantasy rather than the dread reality. If only he had no questions, and she no secrets.

"Why? Because the thought of loosing you does more than wound me. Because I flatter myself that you still feel the same. And at the end of this there is death, undoubtedly mine. I would save you that pain, vhenan."

Opening his heavily-lidded eyes, Solas met her stare of tears; those tears he had not allowed her when leaving those years ago for the other side of the eluvian. The female rarely let herself cry, and Solas would rather she save her tears for anything other than him.

It was going to break him: Ma'ven's visibly fierce, fretting unacceptance of his fate and future. Already the promise of tears was icing over to sure determination. If he was going to survive her, Solas had to put the pretense back. They needed to play at being equals again, the Inquisitor and the Dread Wolf, for he knew he was far less than her, and would quickly give her anything. Ma'ven had more than leverage in this game; she'd all but won.

In unison, their gazes softened. At that, the room ceased to be. Only the lovers were present, and Solas grew aroused as the tip of Ma'ven's nose and peaks of her lips tickled to the ends of his ear. The nourished nerves sent static to his cock as lightning from the storm. He turned his head, causing her mouth to dip to his jaw while she nuzzled lighter, teasing, tickling.

Solas's fingers cupped her face while his brighter tone of voice returned. "If it is a bargain you seek, then what might I do to gain the information, Inquisitor Lavellan?"

With a thankful, knowing nod followed by serene triumph, Ma'ven complied with her part. "See if your men can't figure it all out first." She turned into his hand and kissed the palm. "And when they can not, we will agree to terms."

"A clever ploy to buy time," Solas conceded, moving to cradle her tighter to him. "It gains you the opportunity to gauge my defenses here. Time, however, is often only the benefit of the desperate."

True words from a wise person. But she knew now that Solas was largely in the dark about her time spent among the qunari, and knew nothing of her tour in Tevinter. Dorian was yet safe; from Fen'harel's forces, at least. It was questionable what effect the destruction of the qunari facility might have on Master Pavus's project, but Ma'ven had known the risks and these were slight in comparison.

What concerned her most was the retinue of soldiers slated to collect her from the prison. They had been expected, but that had been before plans changed to include hundreds of pounds of gaatlok. Hopefully the ex-Inquisition sympathizers had been no where near Qunandar yet, and if they had been, she prayed the casualties had been small.

Being so oblivious was frustrating. The Inquisitor was accustomed to having much more access to resources than this; Leliana, for one, or their spies and scouts. What Ma'ven needed was reports from Solas's men. She needed her beloved to focus.

"The desperate, hm?" Whispers along his ear nipped and pulled at the piques. This was for him, all for him, and she found no guilt in the seductive lie. "Then stop wasting time," she said.


	5. Chapter 5

The room was quiet where he was. A brazier burning veil fire brought the gloom to heel in bright, blue light. And though Solas's thoughts were crowded thick like the jungles of Par Vollen, Ma'ven felled through them with two simple questions.

"Did you love her? Were you lovers?" her voice echoed.

The solitude of his modest quarters was favorable for contemplation compared to the loud, lavish rooms the Inquisitor had been sequestered to. Contrasting the gilded bedposts to a wooden headboard and rugs to hard stone: yes, his room was humble, markedly so. Save, of course, the elaborate fresco which Ma'ven was admiring.

"Yes," he answered. "I loved her."

Solas moved from his chair, lay a hand on its back, and motioned to it with a raise of his brow. Ma'ven declined with a small smile.

'Sequestered' was disingenuous. Solas could and would restrict her from nothing. Ma'ven walked where she would in the compound. That just happened to be passed locked doors and warded hallways.

It had very little to do with any sensitive information she might search out, and in fact Solas was quite curious as to what specifically would pique the Inquisitor's interests. Simply put, there was a part of him hidden here that he did not want her or anyone to see, although 'hidden' was disingenuous was well: Solas's secret was written in eye-drawing attention across the bedroom wall which Ma'ven now stared at.

"The style is different," Ma'ven observed, hand placed behind her back in a parody of his posture. Yet she was thoughtful, and her eyes were full of interest. "The subject is less cryptic than what you painted at Skyhold. And the palette is... prettier. Softer. Less primary colours; these are more complicated paints. And expensive. That's cinnabar, is it not?"

"You remember my lecture on pigment imports from Anitva." Solas felt a swell of self-satisfaction which simmered into gratefulness. "There was a need for subtlety at Skyhold, as you might appreciate. This, however, recalls an earlier phase of expression I felt more appropriate."

"It's not like what I saw in the elven mountain ruins, either." Ma'ven glanced at him. "So earlier than your 'rebel artist' period, then?"

He held her gaze. "I've ever been the rebel artist, Ma'ven. But yes, this was inspired by much simpler times."

Where she observed technique, however, Solas only saw desperate attempts to exorcise a certain image from his mind.

The woman on the wall was tall, strong, her arms flung out to enfold the world, and from them came the wings of dragons: six different sets, with scales like jewels. This queen of justice in a cloak of gold stood with her brow in the heavens, for a throne would have done little to represent her stance against the darkness. Deepened rose tints kissed her lips and cheeks, and her skin was moonlight. Solas had given her a crown for she deserved no less, but it sat small on her head as she was humble; a mere circle of silver like evening stars sparking above her kind eyes.

"And you were lovers?" Ma'ven asked again.

The emotion of the piece was palpable, both as an indication of the artist's feelings and a portrait of the subject's emotions. Love, it was all love, and love for her compassion and truth. Solas had an undeniable penchant for artistic ornamentation which lingered into his later frescos, though they had often been dominated by themes of deed rather than impressions of emotions. But the background of this was pure embellishment: a prismatic rainbow of shapes and colours, as shades of admiration mingled in his heart.

"Yes," Solas finally answered softly. "Lovers."

The change was slight. Lines under her eyes stood out, as though the male had done an outline with charcoal.

"It must have been beautiful. To be together for so long that you were compelled to paint her, so as not to loose the memory." Ma'ven turned her attention fully to the image and sighed. "Because... Sometimes I try to remember you and I together, and everything that we... But things have become clouded over the years. Details are gone. I remember you visiting the War Room. And we were alone, and I know what happened, but I can't envision it in my mind." Upon turning to him, her mask of melancholy was replaced by a veil of pity. "I can not imagine loosing her, Solas."

The male's brow furrowed in confusion. And then he realized. "You think she is Mythal."

"Isn't she?"

The mistake was a thoughtful one. With excitement of affection, one of Solas's hands rested lightly on the small of her back. "It was to be her. This was her home in summer, which it seems you might have guessed."

"There are dragons everywhere," Ma'ven nodded, arm sweeping out to encompass their surroundings. "Statues, candle holders, braziers, door handles..."

"Yes," Solas nodded. "There is. The people rather loved the image, as she did. I thought this place deserving of dedication to her. But as I mixed the pigments and put it to the plaster, I all but forgot Mythal."

Circling around the truth with delicacy thick upon the end of his brush, Solas had painted enough of Mythal's beloved dragon motifs that old ghosts were satisfied. He had tried hard to do right by the mother of justice, for she deserved a dozen compliments regarding her goodness. The fate of the fresco, however, betrayed the woman of dragon-like mercy. It betrayed Solas's weakness and wanting in exhaustive detail. At night when he lay in quiet restlessness and looked up at his work, Solas's own creation goaded him into forgoing everything: his quest, his duty. For his artistic and passionate heart was exhilarated by Ma'ven and nothing else, and the fresco made it obvious as it conformed to her essence.

"Oh," the elf maid said after a moment of silence. With a little nod she thanked him, and eased into the palm on her back. "I am incredibly flattered, Solas. I don't know what else to say."

He considered the heat of her body under his hand, and how it was never missed more than when caressing his skin. Solas thought of later, and he thought of before. He remembered so many hours and ages and lifetimes when the simple joy of her being near had been impossible. Moving behind her, his hands rested snug on her hips, and he cradled her close just as she held his heart.

"My inspiration is generous," Solas purred quietly in her ear. "And she should be resting."

Ma'ven moved from his grasp in rejection of this suggestion, and began looking around at the cluttered tables. Her curiosity was, as usual, a starved creature. It made Solas happy.

There were no practical or important items in the room. No missives from his men or notes about his plans were to be seen. Pretty things like pottery, dried flowers and poetry collections were piled about in haphazard, but there wasn't any dust or neglected dirt on them. There were wine bottles placed in a row of tempting cherry liquid on a roughly constructed table. There were piles of paintings leaning against the wall in lavish frames. This was either the private palace of a culturally conscience creature, or the horde of someone who felt the need to rescue certain works of art from a world of irrelevance.

"None of this place has felt like you. And now I know why. It was Mythal's." The female ran a finger over the singled out tomb sitting on a buffet near his chair. "I never could picture you sleeping in that gaudy bed. I mean, I adore it. But this! This is your room, through and through."

"I've long claimed this house as my own," Solas said while serenely watching her sort through his things. "I'd rather that than leave it abandoned. But yes, here is where I sleep."

Still slightly favoring her injured foot, Ma'ven moved to his small single cot, which was bedded with frayed blankets and worn furs.

"Even in a place of luxury, he's the apostate," Ma'ven said under her breath.

"To your bed, vhenan," Solas pressed light-heartedly.

"But of course."

Slowly laying down on her side, Ma'ven looked up at him from a nest of desire. Every move she made was calculated: a pouting of the lips, a lowering of the eyes down his waist, and then a heart-felt giggle burst forth at the feigned seduction. Solas chuckled as well. They had need for secrets, and certain defenses against one another were an unfortunate necessity. Seduction, however, was useless and laughable. It would take merely the suggestion of a welcoming smile to have either of them at the whims of the other.

"You are still mending, and I must prepare for the morning," Solas said as his smile hazed away like smoke. "I leave tomorrow."

"What?" 

The male was both fondly touched and painfully struck by the fear in her tone. "I can not command while cloistered here, Ma'ven. I must be among the people. You understand the need for personal involvement, the Inquisition thrived for it."

Moving to her feet, she approached him, emotions steeling against the softness of his features. "I suppose I do I understand that, yes."

Her fingers were on his stomach, having worked under his loose tunic, and they scorched licks of surprise across his abdomen like wet heat. The action of it was lost on Solas, as Ma'ven's movements had been so quick, and his shirt was suddenly half over his head.

"Vhenan, please," Solas said with little struggle. The cold room tickled over his chest as his shirt became balled in her fist as her side.

"I have but one arm, Solas," Ma'ven stated matter-of-factly, eyes drawn to the naked skin of his shoulders. "If you wanted to stop me, you could."

Solas had to come to terms with the fact that their relationship was of great transparency now. His apprehensive passion in the past had been shown to be a factor of his omissions, and Ma'ven, always respectful of his reticence, had reflected upon it and rejected it. She'd been a sensual creature once, Solas knew. And Solas, cruelly, had forced her to curtail it. Aside from a few indiscretions, their time in Skyhold had been largely spent with her gazing at him from behind pleading eyes, and him looking away, denying not only himself but her. It had been a necessity. No more was this the case.

"Are you healed?" Solas asked hopefully, betraying all the better judgement he'd ever been blessed with.

"I am well enough," Ma'ven said, her right hand pressed to his chest and pushing him towards the cot.

When the backs of his legs hit the bed, he buckled. When he lay on his back, he moaned. Ma'ven made short work of the strings at his waist while he watched in rapt fascination, his love's embodiment baring him to her with quick fingers.

"If you'll allow me..."

Solas straightened up, pulled the loosened leggings off, and then reached for the length of her dress which fell to her ankles at the side of the bed.

"No," Ma'ven said, standing up. The way she looked down on him was a mustering of all her might, and it was glorious. "Tonight it is my turn to interrogate. You are at the mercy of the Inquisition, rebel. Pray that your trickster god hears you and is merciful."

Solas chuckled.

Draping her body sprawled in silk over his, Ma'ven sat on his stomach and stole into Solas's mouth without hesitation. Her hand gripped his chin with unexpected strength, steering him where she would, as her tongue circled around his. She suckled his bottom lip with such ferocity that she seemed to want to swallow him. Solas's hands rose in protest of this suddenness, but ended up entwining around her waist as they traded wet caresses. Closer and closer he held her, deeper and deeper she kissed him, until Ma'ven was pulling away and moving down his long body with confident purpose.

The male mourned this quick action. He'd had hopes of idle pleasure. If they were to play, then he wished to be the victim to all those manipulations employed by interrogators when seeking satisfaction from their captors. Solas had wanted minuets spent in coy calculation while Ma'ven lengthened this lie of authority, and questioned him with shy touches while his legs began to buck. Solas had been ready to be starved of sense as Ma'ven's teeth and nails teased sharp pleasure across the skin of his neck. He wished to thirst of watery, wet relief, as she tongued along his hip bone, down his abdomen, but no, no lower than that. That was gratification which Solas did not deserve, for he wasn't telling her what she wanted, was he? Answers he would have given her: admissions of every lustful thought he had thrust to over the years, his member in his hand, her image in his mind. Confessions of his fantasies would have come in helpless cries: visions of bending her over his desk like a beast, bedding her with ropes around her wrists, or his. Sobbing, Solas would have succumbed to affections which broke him, as soft ministrations to the tight ring of his buttocks pushed him toward orgasm, but refused to let him realize it. Begging, begging...

Solas wanted all these things; these subtle, lasting, pleading things. However, as Ma'ven took his member thoroughly to the back of her throat and swallowed around it, he had to admit that this might be better.

"Ma'ven," he choked as she continued flexing her throat against his cockhead. "That is...ah! It has been... I may not last, vhen-"

The wet, sloshing sound of her gagging had Solas fisting her hair, pumping his hips, and gritting his teeth against the complete pleasure that pulsed out to his toes. All the muscles in his body became sore from tensing, as her tongue pulled every bit of slack in him to full attention. He had never been so present in sensation as now, with his eyes wrenched shut, back arched, and Ma'ven's hand cupping his balls and gently stroking the skin. The room echoed with the most base and obvious sounds as she shoved him to the back of her throat and again and again, and it goaded him further to orgasm, like fine music swelling his soul to sweet, sodden storming.

"That is... exquisite, Ma'ven," Solas whispered to the stars glaring against his eyelids.

Holding the base of his member, she sucked at the tip with fearful force which brought from him a dark wail. After pulling the digit from her mouth with a pop, she rolled of the underside of her tongue around it; a reward for his good behavior, as she washed away the cruel and incredible sensitivity she was pulling to the head of his cock.

"Mount me, vhenan," Solas asked as he held her head with both hands, suddenly realizing where he was, what this was, that she was here and that he was selfish. "I wish to see you... have some pleasure... I want to see you, my heart. Your eyes."

All the black of endless emptiness crushed him when her lips left his member, but it was only for a second, and then she was sliding over him: wet, but quite tight. She was in need of prior attention to loosen for his length. Yet there she was, weighing down, stretching out, swallowing him from somewhere beneath her dress, and making heartfelt smiling moans.

"Your gown..."

Breathlessly, needing badly to see her beloved body, Solas reached for the white material bunched up at her thighs, but Ma'ven took his hand away.

"No," Ma'ven said, now clutching at his fingers while she rocked back and forth a bit. "Just like this, just like- oh, yes..."

He was sure she was embarrassed of the slash on her breast. He was sure he loved her all the more for every scrape and every scar she wore with purpose. It was something to address later, but not now; not when Solas could see her golden eyes hiding behind heavy lids. Certainly not when her mouth formed to a perfect circle around soft sighs, which coincided with every little sway around his throbbing digit.

It was beyond glorious to have her weight bearing down upon him, burdening him in heavy rapture as she bounced a little, trying to gain a rhythm. Yet there was reticence; a slowness impossible of someone truly consumed. She was still weak, and Solas was only now seeing it. He had let his own desires blind him, and he hated himself.

"Lay down upon me," Solas whispered, looking up at her lovingly.

Ma'ven did in an instant. She nested her face in the crook of his neck while still straddling him, and Solas began thrusting up into her. He found himself no where near fully sheathed and that was fine. Looping his arms around her in a snug embrace, he held her, kissed her crown, and matched these tender attentions with slow, soft insertions. This quiet closeness far outshone the screaming bliss of before. They were one now, their hearts beating together. A hand went to cradling her head, and this was how it would be for every second of existence if he could have it. Ma'ven moaned so quietly, but it was loud in his ear, as though Solas could hear her gratification from within his own mind. His digit worked slowly through her folds, peeling through the petals. Then he noticed something.

There was wetness on his abdomen, trickling hot and thick. It was more than just the stick of sweat, and burned like acid on the skin. Solas stopped his thrusting, and Ma'ven tensed.

"Vhenan, allow me to-"

Solas tried to roll them over, but she clung to him in helplessness so unlike her, and he knew there was something wrong. With his hands he pushed her from his chest to sitting, and there was blood smeared all over his stomach from seeping through her dress.

"Fenedhis, Ma'ven," Solas cursed.

He helped her to move from off his hips to huddling into herself on the edge of the bed. Running from the room, he left the female sitting in a haze until he returned by long, hurried strides with healing potions and rags in hand.

"No." Ma'ven put her palm over her mouth when he came near with the restorative liquid. "I can't, Solas. The smell! I'm going to be ill."

He settled for sopping up the blood on her stomach with a wet towel while she lay flat. Her gaze grabbed at the ceiling, touched over the objects in the room, and went everywhere but to reach out to him.

"Why did you not tell me?" Solas pressed, watching her discomfort grow. "That I did this to you, that you did this for me, I-"

"It's fine, Solas. Just a mistake. Wasn't... paying attention, and then I didn't want it to stop." She smiled apologetically though the corner of her lips twitched with restraint. "You did not reach your pleasure."

"I do not care!" Solas snapped.

His constant worry through the years had been that she might do something terrible for his benefit. She had disbanded the Inquisition, withdrawn from her political connections, and then disappeared, and all these things Solas had blamed on himself. Ma'ven was calm, collected, and thorough in her considerations, but was not above sacrifice when it was called for. And depending on who asked it of her, the female would gladly throw herself on the sword if that was what was required.

Whatever happened in Qunandar was the sum of his fears. Unknowing of the specifics, it was the big picture that portrayed all of his anxieties. Solas knew of qunari torture techniques. He knew her wounds had been mended so that she might further suffer until she did as they wanted. Healing potions had been forced down her throat, and the taste of it regurgitated memories of all the painful horrors. This was why it made her ill. And here she was in further anguish because of him.

"I need that you be healthy." Solas took her hand in his while the other continued to clean her up, his anger passed. "Nothing else."

"Healthy and happy, yes?" Ma'ven asked with a hopeful look in her eyes. A second later she started crying.

Tears in the face of physical pain had always been beyond her. Her position as Inquisitor had demanded it in so many battles that left her bruised but ready for the next task, so this sorrow was something else. Solas stared helplessly and pityingly, wishing to ask to her stop, choosing to wait it out instead. It allowed her to recover her dignity in her own time. When most of the blood was gone, and as Solas daubed restoratives over her torn stitches, Ma'ven sighed and laughed lightly at herself.

"I suppose," Ma'ven said with a last sniffle, "this is where I beg that you keep me here. This is where I make a scene, and a spectacle of myself, and scream that you don't send me away."

Solas met her wet gaze and ached for how her eyelashes clung together. "Did you think with my leaving you were to be taken from here?"

"Am I not?"

Solas shook his head. "No. I have yet to be satisfied. With answers, Ma'ven, I meant nothing more."

The female was smirking at him. "I see. By the Dread Wolf, I am an idiot."

Leaning over, he lavished her lips with breathy whispers and a little smile. "He forgives you."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Better late than never? I got caught up in writing Ma'ven's run as Inquisitor because chronicling the events of the game is something I've always wanted to do. So keep an eye out for that maybe. It does not mean I've dropped this story. However, it might be coming a little slower. As always, hope you're enjoying.


	6. Chapter 6

Morning came, bright and late. Followed by a few more, three days passed. They went and waned with the sun and the moon, moving in so many hours of watching, thinking. But there had been no waiting for Solas. The night's stars weren't sand through the hourglass and Ma'ven was not expecting her lover. Instead, her heart remembered how to beat - soft and even - when doing simple things.

Yesterday she'd foraged in the forests surrounding the hills which encompassed the house. Her basket had almost overflown with apples and acorns on the return. Today, of course, she was weeding. And tomorrow the bedding would be washed after making lye from the fireplace ashes. Ma'ven already looked forward to laying in the field as the sheets dried, the sun above being passed over and played with by clouds. She would smell the scent of heather mingling with the grass, feel the warmth of noon all over her face, and she would sleep. Deep, warm and happy, she would sleep in the sun.

It was domestic subterfuge; lies. The gardening, the chores, supper laid out for her like she was the mistress of the house: cruel, wonderful lies. But lies nonetheless which her heart insisted weren't wrong. And sweet Olyla was all but a collaborator. So Ma'ven forced herself to mindfulness, and the crumbling palace became a question to be asked and answered. Her standards of diligence would settle for nothing less. After all, the woman who had once been Inquisitor wasn't allowed to pretend she was just a maidservant now. Or a peasant. Or a wife.

She and Olyla were working in a small plot of soil which, due to its size, wouldn't keep more than three people fed for long. Obviously Olyla was one who would taste its bounty, likely in measured mouthfuls because that's the sort of person she was. But how often did Solas take his supper in the house? Did he ever enjoy fresh bread, or was it always stale by the time he got to it? When and for how long was he ever here?

What of the watchmen, Mesnan and Vinrel? Ma'ven had been at the compound for some days, and it was still the same two sentinels patrolling the halls. Clearly there was no guard rotation. Unlike the safe houses across Thedas, which Leliana's spies regularly reported on, here there were no refugees fleeing their abuses for Fen'harel's cause. There were ghosts, of course; they lingered in the library and chanted in the halls. But there was no gathering of The People.

It likely meant nothing more than Solas wanting privacy as he pretended he could bare the loneliness. Or it was self-imposed punishment in a prison of Mythal's memory to remind him of what he'd done. Either was possible.

The afternoon announced its self by a swell of heat. As Ma'ven's basket became heavy with grassy refuse, Olyla talked on happily. She was a somber woman who came alive in the garden, which was the only time when she was distracted enough to let her beautiful black hair fall into disarray. She spoke of the differences in royal elfroot cultivation compared to its more common cousin, and then enthused about the effects of sunlight on the leaves of other plants. Her voice was long-winded, wonderful, joyful and interesting until it stopped dead with a gasp.

"My lord!" Olyla exclaimed suddenly instead of finishing her thought on embrium root systems. In his artful mail crafted for a rebel king, Solas was standing at the doorway which led to the kitchen.

"Good morning," the male nodded graciously.

"You're back," said Ma'ven.

The sun couldn't compare to the glow on Solas's cheeks as he checked over Ma'ven's rough cotton dress and noticed dirt stains on her knees. She, however, looked away from his smile. No sun-shiny good-feelings could shake her mind's shadow when knowing what Solas's return truly meant. She had to force back the desire to run into his arms and look at things as they were. Because they were going to talk now, and it wouldn't be the conversation of united lovers. Solas's words would wind their way through the maze of Ma'ven's memory even if she stayed silent. His questions would drag out the guards, the instruments and the time, and she would have to face it all like it was happening again.

_Qunandar. Sturdy and practical architecture. Poisonous flora. Imposing locals with their beyond foreign culture. She'd been there too long, eaten too much of their food, endured so much of their-_

"Ma'ven."

The elfmaid looked up from the spot of garden that had suddenly come into focus. Solas's face was close.

"Yes," nodded the woman. Four, six: the lines around her lover's eyes. "Inside." With a little smile, she forced some inflection into her dead tone. "Olyla would argue if I insisted on finishing up here, anyways. Come on."

The kitchen was a very long room. Every bit of cooking convenience, from the piled up pans to the various means of cooking on an open hearth, was clustered near the door. Only a quarter of the room was used, suggesting that a large staff had once bustled about to serve those who lived here. And now Olyla, all alone, had added her pretty, personal touches such as the beautiful earthenware glinting in the light. They were seas themselves, chaotically glazed in dark viridian and ocean blue, and bottomless in their sweet contents of sugar and dried apple slices.

Ma'ven approached a waist-high washing bucket on top of a stool. Dipping into the cool water, she started rubbing her hand against a cloth at the bottom. Having been long enough without her left arm, such tasks were no longer annoying, although that didn't make them easier.

"Did you just arrive?" she asked over her shoulder, looking Solas up and down. "You could have taken off your armor, at least. Or are you leaving again soon?"

"Is it not just as likely I wished to see you as soon as possible?" Solas asked. His voice had taken on that lilting quality of their light-hearted days at Skyhold, and his brow raised in a way she hadn't seen in years.

"If that's the case, then you must have found some interesting news in your travels," Ma'ven guessed, returning her attention to what she was doing. "Is Leliana still looking for me, or is she looking for you? How are things in Tevinter?"

By way of an answer, Solas stole up hard against Ma'ven's back and his bare hands sunk into the bucket. Every curve of him found every curve of her, and they held together like hands that never wanted to let go.

" _Very_ interesting news, then, if you cannot wait for me to do this myself," Ma'ven teased with a sigh, despite herself. "Don't keep me in suspense, Solas. Ask your questions. I'm sure you have at least a couple of them."

A slow caress crept up her wrist and sent static to her stomach. She gasped for air, but it seemed there was none left in the room.

"Your insistence suggests something other than charity," Solas chided in her ear. "Desperation. Vulnerability." While listing her sins, he squeezed her hand softly.

It wasn't fair, this; this, compared to what was to come. Her hand in his, the holding, the sentiment: to be followed by bitter words and more apologies than she had words for.

"Yes, well, Mesnan and Vinrel tell me nothing," Ma'ven pouted.

"They were chosen for their loyalty, not loose tongues." But Solas's evocative tone was replaced by surprise when he looked at the work before him. "How did you get such dirt beneath your nails, vhenan?"

Ma'ven laughed loudly, surprising her own melancholy.

"Carefully!" she answered. "In fact, it was very difficult," she assured. Solas brought her dripping palm to his lips, and water splashed down, and they smiled.

Ma'ven had no choice but to give in to the playful depths of his voice, the dips of his body; his touches. She relaxed against his chest, felt her own tighten with emotion, and it was almost believable that the day wouldn't soon be met with heartbreak.

"I missed you." She whispered softly in the hopes that her own head-strong, self-sufficient conscience wouldn't hear this betrayal.

"I know." Solas mouthed the words across her crown. "However, we have much to discuss, and the conversation will not be kind. There are answers only to be gained from you, but they are answers I need. I may be abrasive; curt. I'd like to apologize in advance, Ma'ven. My heart."

"Hm." The woman considered this innocent threat thoughtfully. "Well, we could just go to bed."

It didn't earn the light-hearted chuckle she'd been hoping for.

With Solas's task complete and their hands soon dried, the couple left the room. There was an immediate shift as cold as leaving the warmth of home for winter's touch. As they turned down a dark hallway, they relied on the torch glow to guide them, but the light fell short of comforting as something ominous drew near. Ma'ven was led to the seat of interrogation with every step, and she knew she would need to make of it a throne of conviction if she were to outdo Solas this time. What he had learned while he was away was questionable, and Ma'ven's stock in secrets was the only thing keeping certain colleagues alive. Dorian, dear Dorian, with his amiable ambitions of bettering his homeland, was in the most danger. But there was hope that the strings of intrigue knitted thick enough to keep Master Pavus's maneuvers hidden in unlikelihood. Heavy though she felt for having done what she did, Ma'ven knew the weight of it was easier to bare than loosing Dorian to Solas's forced hand. Because if Solas knew what Dorian had been up to, Dorian would be dead.

"Are you saying nothing in the hopes of unnerving me?" she asked as they walked in quiet.

"I've been unnerved enough in the past few days for the both of us," Solas answered evenly. "I would not have you suffer the same, Inquisitor."

Yet for all his softness of words, _Inquisitor_ he called her.

"That's not who I am. Not anymore."

Ma'ven swallowed a bitter breath. That such a respected epithet should still be given to her was actually insulting. It had once meant something good, and she hadn't done anything good in some time.

"You betray your guilt but not the truth," Solas shot back, clearly agitated. He sighed knowingly. "Remember that I love you. Please."

They entered a hall of great length measured by fine tables covered in thick dust. The floor was strewn with faded leaves, dried petals and dead rose stems, as though time had worked through the room in a hurricane. A tickle at the top of the ears spread along the rest of Ma'ven's skin, and felandaris was spotted finding pathways through the flooring. The Veil was thin; the elfmaid wondered why.

Tall and stern, the rebel god motioned subtly towards a chair. Fair and mighty, the Inquisitor sat, squared her shoulders; stared back hard. Then the Dread Wolf placed himself at the head of the table, and without so much as a purse of his lips, said in his silence that he could no longer accept her reserve.

"Tell me how you came here. How you unlocked the eluvian. Who has the power to do the same?"

Fen'harel's words did not echo, for the grand room was not large enough to hold his voice. It vaulted to the ceiling and continued to the sky, ominous and feared. Feared by all but her.

"Your persistence sounds a lot like begging, Dread Wolf," laughed the Inquisitor. It was a clear sound; confident.

"Beggars have their limits," Fen'harel answered.

"Yes, I suppose that's true." There was a smirk at her lips as the Inquisitor's battlements raised in the form of insinuations. "Their limits rarely fall short of theft, though. Or murder."

"Perhaps. But I am no beggar. Thief, yes. Murderer, certainly." The Dread Wolf sat stiffer in his chair despite this playful debate. "And, on that note, I would know how many injured to prepare for in the event of intruders. Both yours and mine."

This was met with a frustrated sigh.

"I've answered that question before. And stop trying to give my allegiance to someone else, I'm not working with anyone. The Inquisition is finished, and so is my role within it."

The woman spoke with the self-assurance of one simply stating facts lifted from a book. But Fen'harel grimaced against such text, as he read between the lines and found a volume's worth of deceit.

"And the implications of that are worse," he said. "Far worse, Inquisitor."

"Why?"

Ma'ven, not the figurehead, now hummed with annoyance. Whereas the Inquisitor was solid strength, Ma'ven was not afraid of a soft heart if it was a true heart supported by principle.

"Why are you so afraid of letting me help you?" she asked. "Or is it guilt? I suppose you think I should look at your actions and disapprove. I'm to look in horror at all you've done and all you'll do, and then beg you to stop. But I trust you, Solas. I trust you to do what is right in your heart, and I will not abandon you to your intentions. You won't transform into some monster before my eyes, I promise. In an afternoon you went from being an apostate to Fen'harel. Do you think I'm so fickle?"

"It is not a transformation of myself I fear," Solas said just as tenderly. "I know what I will become as I walk this road. I know what I am. But you! You are changing. And I would not see your rare spirit fashion its self for my purposes. I would not see the look upon your face as you betray your friends for my cause."

The Inquisitor turned away. _Guilt_.

"Ah." Fen'harel's lips twitched with unhappy triumph. "Then it was done deliberately, as I feared."

The Inquisitor looked back. _Dread_.

The answer to her questioning, trembling glance did not come kindly. "Your Seeker was wounded severely in the explosion. The soldiers who accompanied her were not similarly spared." Of course, nothing can offset the bitterness of all but knowing a terrible truth. The woman leaned forward on her elbows and covered her face, having wished for otherwise.

'I had hoped,' Ma'ven thought to herself, 'but I knew. Mythal take pity.'

"Dozens of qunari were also destroyed, yet the Triumvirate does not look to the Inquisition for recompense." The Dread Wolf continued beyond her inner thoughts as persistent as any hunter. "This suggests an alliance. What was the facility's importance, Inquisitor?"

"I don't know." Oh, she was tired.

"You are lying."

"Yes. I am." And she was stubborn.

"Why was Cassandra there?"

And now she was hurt. Ma'ven's hand fell from her face and onto the table. "No! Not like this. This isn't- Just how badly was she hurt, Solas?"

His fingers pulled to a fist to fight off the fracturing of her courage which pierced his spirit in splinters. There was bloodiness to his words, and black heartlessness to his endeavour, but the Wolf was here for a reason. "With time and luck the Seeker may walk again."

"No more," begged Ma'ven tiredly as she tried to stare him down. "No more of this, please. You are in no danger. Just leave it at that."

"When the qunari and Inquisition appear to be allied, yet you were held prisoner? When Seeker Pentaghast received word of your location but was wounded? You entered this place despite my lock on the eluvian, and I cannot simply leave it, vhenan."

The strength of Solas's gaze broke. So he stood. If he could not face her, his back might put some distance between him and his weakness, his desire; his impulse to move towards her and hold her. "The qunari once had such power as to give them access here," he continued. "I will not loose that advantage again."

"Is this place so important?" Ma'ven asked.

"Are the Inquisition and qunari forces allied?" Solas pressed instead, still unable to meet her eyes.

In a gesture of self-comfort, Ma'ven's lone arm snaked across her stomach, but it looked more like she was attempting to staunch an open wound.

"This is cruel," she whispered sadly.

Solas frowned. "Would you have preferred pillow talk?"

As the adrenaline invoked from their conversation now ebbed away, Ma'ven stood up. She felt weak, and light. It was as if her spirit was coursing through her limbs, but the tide kept going out beyond her and there was no return; no rise of her will, no swell of her resolve. If she cast all into the ocean - she hoped, she prayed - perhaps she would find peace.

"Cassandra was there because I sent a letter," Ma'ven admitted after a long moment of debate. "I paid an innkeeper to hold onto it, and to release it a specific time so Cassandra would arrive when needed. She was to... extract me; rescue me if I were still alive. I went in on an errand which the Inquisition knew nothing about, and at the last minuet an opportunity presented its self. I couldn't ignore it, so I destroyed the facility. To protect you. To protect others from you. And this is the last I will speak of it, Solas."

These last words were merely colouring for the gasping and supressed sobs wrenching her throat. Solas had offended her by forcing this confession, but their meeting couldn't possibly have gone differently. He was the enemy of anyone else that Ma'ven cared about; an enemy to the very world she lived in. She'd tried to toe the line in between, to remain loyal to him and everyone else, and now there was a good woman lying in agony. A woman who gave of herself entirely, and who could have lived easily but chose to live righteously. A woman whose lap Ma'ven's head had rested in like a child after her mangled arm had been severed as thoroughly as her heartstrings. Cassandra was lying helpless in some healing house now, and was owed an explanation which Ma'ven could never make good on.

"You've given me much to consider, Inquisitor," Solas said apologetically once seeing how distraught she was. "I... Thank you. And I'm sorry for the pain this has caused."

"It's not your fault," Ma'ven said in a hollow echo as her lover walked towards her. "I should have been stronger, or more honest. I should have chosen a side earlier than this. I can't protect the world and those in it when I love the person who would destroy it. I'm too selfish to do what is right. I always have been."

Solas stood before her. He watched her attempt to find some will-power, and waited until his own was gone. Finally his left arm wrapped around her waist, and his right played in her hair, and he held her. "Our common flaw, then."

Ma'ven's eyes brimmed with tears. "And I always thought it would be our cold feet." But what a thing to say! What a thing to say, given what she'd done! The tears spilled down her cheeks and rough sobs rocked her shoulders. "Poor Cassandra. Poor, poor Cassandra. What have I done?"

The answer, of course, was simple. She'd done a terrible thing. And, unbeknownst to her, so far away and with strengthened dedication, Dorian continued his work. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> How did this take two months to write? It's a mystery.


End file.
